NASA’s Juno spacecraft has a problem with its engine
Science not affected yet, but if problem isn’t fixed Juno will fly fewer orbits.

For NASA's Juno spacecraft, all had been going well since its July 4th insertion into orbit around Jupiter—as well as things can go when radiation is slowly eating away at a spacecraft, that is. That ended when mission managers tried to send a command to the robotic probe on Thursday.

Team members of NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter will discuss the latest science results, an amateur imaging processing campaign, and the recent decision to postpone a scheduled burn of its main engine, during a media briefing at 4 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Oct. 19. The briefing will air live on NASA Television and stream on the agency’s website.ET Phone Home

This image, taken by the JunoCam imager on NASA's Juno spacecraft, highlights the seventh of eight features forming a ‘string of pearls’ on Jupiter -- massive counterclockwise rotating storms that appear as white ovals in the gas giant's southern hemisphere. Since 1986, these white ovals have varied in number from six to nine. There are currently eight white ovals visible.

The image was taken on Dec. 11, 2016, at 9:27 a.m. PST (12:27 EST), as the Juno spacecraft performed its third close flyby of Jupiter. At the time the image was taken, the spacecraft was about 40,000 miles (24,600 kilometers) from the planet.